Never one to let an occasion go to waste, the federal government announced Tuesday – on World No Tobacco Day – that it’ll do an online consultation about making sure cigarettes come in plain old boxes.

“Plain packaging is a critical tool in helping young people to make smart choices, to stop smoking, or better yet never to start,” said Health Minister Jane Philpott.

The government may have missed that the Internet says May 31 was also National Macaroon Day, Speak in Complete Sentences Day and Save Your Hearing Day. Where are those announcements, minister?

The proposal that cigarettes ought to be put in plain packets instead of nice ones is premised on the idea that packs of smokes are attractive, people see them and lust for them like they do a Crunchie bar at the checkout, and soon enough you’ve got another generation of smokers stinking up alleyways and clogging up cancer wards. (And the Liberals’ plan is premised upon the idea that consulting online actually counts as consultation; they’ve promised to make the change anyway, which makes the consultation mostly for show.)

As anti-smoking measures go, plain packaging is a bit of a stinker. Smoking bans would have been a real pain back in the day, and ditto with ever-increasing taxes or bans on menthols that take away the preferred brands for thousands of smokers. But, smoker, do you really need to let everyone around you know you’re a Player’s person? Or that you’re quite posh and Dunhills are your brand? Not really.

If there’s a flaw to plain packaging, it’s probably the “meh” factor, which, presumably, is compounded by the fact that behind the counter of the local Mac’s, smokers haven’t been able to see brands for years, and anyway the pack is festooned with garish warnings about how they’ll die a nasty death.

Then again, as with all laws to coerce smokers into butting out, there’s a whole pile of evidence that suggests plain packaging will work because it makes brands seem unappealing and shoddy, and people look at the smoker toting an ugly beige pack as a bit more cockeyed than usual.

Meanwhile, just as likely, there will be a court challenge by the tobacco industry – Imperial Tobacco has already suggested it’s coming – but it’ll probably lose. (Can anyone remember the last time the industry won in court?)

Cigarette companies, like everyone else, should get to showcase their brands; some, by the way, are iconic and important cultural and historical symbols. This, for the public-health types among us, is hard to grasp, as they’re rather caught up in the heady thrill of telling people how to live.

Plain packaging is happening at about the time that, confusingly, governments are tripping over themselves in a state of befuddlement about e-cigarettes, which are about the only things on the market that are an adequate substitute for smoking. The best available evidence says they’re not nearly as dangerous as real tobacco – there is no tobacco in e-cigs, and the treatment of them as tobacco products is nonsense from anti-smoking ideologues – and they may well help cigarette smokers quit.

If nothing else, the discussion highlights the amusing circumlocution of the nanny state. As with all things, workarounds will be found (perhaps now would be a good time to get into the boutique cigarette case business). They could even be marketed as vintage or with the proper brand names of the tobacco companies.

But then surely government would find a way to ban those too. Eventually, enough laws will exist for us all to march in lockstep into our future, safely cocooned by government.

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